Serious question, is it ever okay to use a drop of super glue on a shutter blade hinge?

Had a Canon AE-1 come in yesterday with a sticky, slow shutter. The usual clean and lube did nothing. I put one tiny drop of the thin super glue on the hinge pin, worked it back and forth before it set, and now it's smooth. Some say this is a hack that will fail later, others say it's a solid fix if you know the exact amount. Has anyone else done this on a specific model?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_eric1mo ago

I saw a repair guide for the Minolta X-700 that mentioned this exact trick. They said a tiny drop of cyanoacrylate on the pin can work as a last resort, but it basically welds the parts together. The risk is that any future wear just grinds the plastic instead of the metal, creating dust that gums up everything else. It might be smooth now, but that plastic dust has to go somewhere. I'd only do it on a camera I was keeping forever, not one to sell.

sage_ramirez421mo agoMost Upvoted

Wait, is the pin actually plastic? In my experience with the X-700, that advance lever pivot pin is metal on metal. The super glue trick can work, but the dust it creates would be from the glue itself wearing down, not plastic. That's still bad news for the gears though, so @the_eric is right about the risk.

jenniferw821mo ago

Ugh, that plastic dust detail is a nightmare. It's exactly the kind of short-term fix that comes back to haunt you years later when the whole shutter box is full of grey sludge. Solid call on only doing that to a forever-camera.